(Reuters) – Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge will compete at the Hamburg Marathon in April as he steps into preparations to defend his Olympic title, the marathon world record holder said Thursday.
Kipchoge, who set a world record 2:01:39 in Berlin on September 2018, is waiting to become the third Olympic title winner after his 2016 victory in Rio.
The Tokyo Olympics, which was postponed in March last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is expected to begin on July 23rd.
“In Hamburg, I’m going back to the gender of my marathon career,” he tweeted here Kipchoge, who won in Hamburg on his first marathon run in 2013.
The 36-year-old, the first to run a marathon in less than two hours, in an unofficial race, finished eighth on his last run at the London Marathon in October.
The Hamburg Marathon, scheduled for April 11, will feature around 100 elite athletes on a 10.5 km curve course.
Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Edited by David Goodman